


Of Flight and First Kisses

by closet_fujoshi (chaotic_souljam)



Series: Soulmates [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Flying, Kids, M/M, Vampire AU, mostly if not all fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 15:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotic_souljam/pseuds/closet_fujoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're ten years old when Haru first teaches Makoto how to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Flight and First Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> Note: **Bolded** text is when they’re communicating in their minds. _Italicised_ text is Haru thinking. Indented _italics_ are song lyrics (there’s only one though so it should be fairly obvious).
> 
> Prequel to _Of Telepathy and Vampires_. Unedited as of now, so there are probably mistakes in there somewhere...
> 
> Written for the [makoharu festival](http://makoharufestival.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, not sure if the rating is a bit high. I'd say this is just barely T in my opinion.

“Haru-chan, I’m scared. Let’s go back?”

“What are you saying? This was your idea, remember?”

“But—!”

Haru shoots Makoto a sideways glance. The white-knuckled fingers clinging to the hem of Haru’s shirt and the scrunched up eyes are clear signs of Makoto’s distress, but Haru can tell that despite his words, Makoto doesn’t really want to quit before he’s even started. It’s just that he needs Haru to give him a little push, a little nudge, a little bit of courage to face his fears. 

So he does just that.

“Makoto, open your eyes.”

“But it’s scary…”

Haru takes Makoto’s face into his hands and pulls him closer until their foreheads are touching

“It’s scary? Even if I’m right here?”

At that, Makoto’s eyes fly open.

“That’s—I mean—it’s just that this cliff is really high up. And…”

Makoto keeps on rambling as he tries to backtrack and convince Haru that no, he is not saying that Haru being there isn’t helping because _obviously, Haru-chan can make the scary things not so scary anymore._ His arms flail around as he tries to explain, and clearly he hadn’t gotten the hint that Haru had been mostly just teasing him again.

It doesn’t take him long to realise that though; what must have given it away would be the pursing of Haru’s lips as he tries not to laugh at the ridiculous things that Makoto ends up saying—like _‘Haru-chan is good at drawing so he’s good with his hands which means when I hold his hand it makes me feel a lot better’._

“Haru-chan,” Makoto whines once he’s sure that he hasn’t accidentally offended the dark-haired boy. 

“Sorry,” Haru replies good-naturedly, an almost-imperceptible smile on his lips. He doesn’t normally like smiling, but he always ends up doing it whenever he’s with Makoto. He doesn’t really know why things happen like that, but he doesn’t really feel the need to know anyway. 

Why should it matter? As long as Makoto doesn’t mind his admittedly awkward grimaces that sometimes pass off as smiles, then there’s no problem

“Have you calmed down now?”

Makoto nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Haru-chan

It’s really unfair though, Haru thinks, that all Makoto has to do is smile at him and it already feels as if his whole face is on fire.

“ …it’s nothing. Let’s just get on with it.”

“Okay.”

Makoto stares up at him with bright green eyes, and Haru finds that he can’t help but look back. He blames it on their newly established soul link, but in the back of his mind he knows that there’s no way their link is strong enough yet for Makoto to influence him this strongly through it. 

According to their teachers, their link should only blossom fully after they’d both awakened to their vampiric nature and taken their first taste of fresh blood, but Haru is a bit sceptical of that because their link is already this strong—to the point that he knows when Makoto has something on his mind—so is there even a way for it to become stronger?

Still, it’s a better explanation than anything he can come up with so he supposes he can run with that for now. 

“Um, I’ll start now,” Makoto mumbles hesitantly, stepping away from Haru. 

The dark-haired boy nods in understanding. “Remember. Focus on an image of what you want the wind to do.”

“I know.”

Makoto takes a deep breath and closes his eyes again. The winds coming from the sea, already quite strong due to their location at the highest point of the cliffs overlooking Iwatobi, grows stronger still as Makoto’s wind-waking stirs them to life.

The wind gathers around Makoto, gently lifting him up a few feet off the ground. Haru resists the urge to reach out and make sure he’s stable; Makoto doesn’t need the distraction right now, and touching him might just upset the balance that Makoto has managed to keep so far.

Instead, he watches Makoto steadily rise until his feet are level with Haru’s forehead. His heart beats faster from a peculiar mix of pride and fear—he’s proud of what his soul mate can do, but at the same time, he’s afraid of seeing him fall. 

Makoto flexes his limbs, feeling the wind the way Haru feels the water when he’s submerged in it. In his doing that though, he accidentally kicks the side of Haru’s head.

“Ouch,” Haru winces before he can catch himself.

“Huh? Haru-chan?”

One of Makoto’s eyes peek open, reflexively glancing around in search of Haru.

Haru clearly sees the moment that Makoto’s concentration breaks—his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, then he looks down and sees how high up he’s gotten, then his face twists into that face he wears whenever he hears or sees something that scares him. 

_Well, he_ is _scared of heights after all._

People say that adrenaline sometimes makes it seem as if time slows down, and this is definitely the case for Haru at this moment. It’s like he’s watching Makoto in slow-motion as he tips over and starts falling to the ground.

“Gaah!”

“Makoto!”

Haru has just enough time to dash forward and try to break Makoto’s fall. He dives under the younger boy’s falling body, not minding the grainy dirt scratching at his exposed limbs. 

Makoto lands on him with a dull thud, and it’s a bit ridiculous what his first thought turns out to be—or the first words he speaks, actually, because sometimes Makoto makes his filter malfunction and he ends up blurting out whatever is on his mind.

“…I think you got heavier.”

Makoto blinks down at him with teary eyes and trembling lips. He buries his face into Haru’s neck. “Did not.”

“You sure?”

“Probably.”

He smiles a little at the petulant tone of Makoto’s voice before reaching up to smooth down the unruly bits of brown hair on the top of Makoto’s head. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No,” Makoto sniffles, his fists clenched tightly around the fabric of Haru’s shirt. “But as I thought, flying is too scary!”

Haru nudges Makoto into a sitting position, wincing when he catches a glimpse of his scratched-up arms. Makoto notices the direction of his gaze, and guilt quickly spreads over his expression.

“I’m sorry, Haru-chan! You got hurt because of me…”

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” Haru hurries to explain. He’d rather not deal with Makoto beating himself up over causing him pain; because of their link, he’d be able to feel it a lot if Makoto starts obsessing over how to make it up to him and he’s rather have whatever peace of mind he can get for the next few days.

Besides, vampires heal pretty fast; the wounds should be gone by the next day.

“We can just go home for today. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Sorry again, Haru-chan.”

“Stop apologizing already.”

“Sor—okay.”  
________________________________________

It’s been a few weeks since that time that Makoto had tried to fly, and even now, Makoto still can’t manage anything more than hovering a few feet above ground for a couple of seconds. Their teachers seem patient enough about it, but Haru can tell that Makoto doesn’t like disappointing people especially when they are clearly expecting a lot from him.

It must be hard, Haru thinks, to be an air-born child of two air-born vampires; the pressure to at least not fail too badly must be exhausting. And for someone as keen to please as Makoto, it must be suffocating almost to the point of being unbearable.

The near-constant discomfort fluttering through the link is taking its toll on both of them too; Haru finds himself getting more short-tempered with other people, even his parents sometimes, and Makoto has become even jumpier than usual. 

It’s becoming a problem, but that’s okay because Haru is fairly sure he knows how to fix it.

All he has to do is help Makoto learn how to fly.

________________________________________

“Haru-chan, what’s that?”

“A movie.”

“We’re watching a movie?”

“Aa.”

“Yay!”

Haru deftly pops the disc in the DVD player and waits for it to load. Behind him, he can hear Makoto rustling the sheets on his bed as he bounces up and down in excitement. 

Makoto’s room is as familiar to him as his own, if not more so because of the increasingly large amounts of time Haru spends in the Tachibana house ever since the twins had grown old enough to start asking for ‘Haru-nii-chan’.

“This is pretty rare, isn’t it?”

Haru turns to Makoto. “What is?”

“Us watching a movie you picked. Usually, you let me choose, right?”

Haru scrunches his eyebrows. 

          **Does that mean you want to watch a different movie?  
**           **No, that’s not what I meant at all!**  
          **Then…**  
          **Never mind. I’m sure whatever you picked is really nice, Haru-chan.**

Haru turns away from Makoto. When Makoto is this honest with his feelings, it’s a bit difficult to respond without embarrassing himself. It’s a good thing then, Haru thinks, that Makoto can read even his barely-formed thoughts—the ones that are more emotion than cohesive thoughts.

From the widening of Makoto’s smile, Haru knows that the warmth spreading through his chest is not just his alone.

Thankfully, the sound of the TV catches both of their attentions before Haru can start thinking about how Makoto’s smile is really nice. 

“Disney?”

“Yeah,” Haru replies almost defensively. He’s about to argue that ten is not too old an age to be watching Disney movies, but the way Makoto watches the TV raptly makes him decide not against it. Besides, he doesn’t need to. This is Makoto, after all; he wouldn’t be the type to tease him too much about his choice in movies.

Although, to be honest, it’s not even that he really likes this particular movie; there’s too much sun and hardly any water—which makes sense considering the story is set in the desert—but when he had asked his grandma if there is any way for him, as a water-born, to help the air-born Makoto with his wind-waking, she had replied with _‘Why don’t you try watching this movie with him?’_

Then she’d given him an old-looking title in a worn plastic case with no further elaboration. Had it been any other person than his grandmother, Haru would have been hesitant to trust such vague instructions, but his grandma has never steered him wrong so he figures that there must be a reason that she had chosen to give him this particular movie.

Haru watches the events of the movie unfold from the corner of his eyes. He only manages a vague understanding of the plot—something about lamps and wishes or what not—because most of his attention eventually shifts to Makoto whose expressions are a thousand times more interesting to see when compared to the movie. 

Makoto’s ears perk up whenever sometime good happens, and he smiles every time the boy and the princess are on-screen together. He leans forward a bit when things get exciting, and he chews lightly on his bottom lip whenever the villain makes an appearance. Sometimes, his sharp incisors break skin, and there’s that tiny bead of blood that draws Haru’s attention like a moth to a flame before the wound closes. 

Then, when a large animal head pops out of the sand dunes, the brunet utters a tiny ‘eep’, his fingers automatically reaching for Haru’s, and Haru feels a little bad about how he wishes for more scary scenes so Makoto will hold his hand more.

Haru has always thought of Makoto as his best and closest friend and because of that, he had been convinced that it’s normal for him to be so happy just seeing Makoto happy, but this might be the first time that he’s realised how cute Makoto can be, especially when he’s smiling.

_Cute?!_

Flushing red, Haru immediately tamps down the thought before Makoto can sense it, and judging from the fact that Makoto still remains engrossed in the movie, he had succeeded. He breathes a sigh of relief and turns resolutely to watching the movie in an attempt to avoid any further slip-ups.

And he’s just in time to see why his grandma had recommended this movie for them.

          _I can show you the world_  
          _Shining, shimmering, splendid_  
          _Tell me, princess, now when did_  
          _You last let your heart decide?_

The couple on screen fly around on a magic carpet, and they do seem to be enjoying it a lot—so much so that even Makoto, who cringes slightly in second-hand fear when he sees others in really high-up places, appears to have momentarily forgotten about his fear of heights. 

_Oh. I think I understand now, Grandma._

This must surely be the best solution to Makoto’s flying problem; Haru himself has no issues with high places so if he’s there at Makoto’s side to keep him calm as he does his wind-waking, then everything should work out fine.

Shouldn’t it?

“Haru-chan?”

Makoto tilts his head questioningly. He must have sensed Haru’s mind starting to work overtime as he turns the new idea of flying with Makoto over and over within his thoughts. Haru examines the notion from every possible angle, and decides that its merits far outweigh its cons.

Haru turns to Makoto with determination now that he’s set on the idea. He tosses the image of them flying together into the link, gently nudging it through to Makoto’s mindspace. 

Then he waits for Makoto to absorb it, and when he does, his reaction is predictably one of initial surprise that turns into worry.

The movie is all but forgotten at this point, but that’s fine since it’s fulfilled its purpose—to spark that one idea in Haru’s mind that for some reason, he hadn’t considered until now.

“But Haru-chan,” Makoto says cautiously. “Isn’t it dangerous? I mean, what if we both fall?”

Hmm. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead, actually, but presented with the mention of such a scenario, he manages to light upon a solution that seems so obvious that Haru can hardly believe he hadn’t thought of it before.

“We’ll fly over the sea then. If we do that, then I can use the water to catch us if we fall.” Haru nods, clearly pleased with his quick thinking.

He can see Makoto still wavering between agreeing and disagreeing, but then he sighs and Haru knows that he’s convinced.

“Okay.” 

Makoto gives him a slightly wobbly smile.

“Let’s go then.”

“Eh?! We’re going now?”

Haru swiftly gets up and glances outside at the darkened windows; it’s pretty late already, but the moon is full so there’s plenty of light to see with. 

The curtains flutter gently. The wind is a mere whispering breeze so there shouldn’t be any difficulty for Makoto’s wind-waking.

The darkness seems to be intimidating Makoto though so in a rare show of playfulness, Haru holds out his hand in an exaggerated pose, mimicking the actions of the prince from the movie.

“Do you trust me?” he says in a mock-deep voice. 

Makoto giggles at his imitation of a princely face. Haru struggles not to smile back when he hears Makoto’s reply.

“Always, Haru-chan.”

Makoto takes his offered hand without missing a beat.

________________________________________

“Haru-chan, are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

The sea laps at their waists. The water is cold, but not unbearably so, but to be sure, Haru closes his eyes and asks the water to grow warmer. It acquiesces, albeit a bit slowly.

“Well, here goes nothing, I guess,” Makoto says nervously. He takes Haru’s hands in his.

The water surrounding them starts whirling counter-clockwise as the wind gathers around the two of them. But after a few minutes, it seems that that’s all that’s going to happen if they keep going at this rate. 

“Sorry, Haru-chan. I’m not strong enough to get us both up in the air,” Makoto mumbles, his head hanging low.

Haru purses his lips in thought. It’s not a matter of strength, he thinks, because he can feel power in the air of Makoto’s mindspace whenever he’s there. If it’s not that, then it must be something else.

“Don’t give up so easily, dummy. Try again.”

“Uhh, okay.”

Makoto squeezes his eyes shut in concentration. This time, the water moves faster and the wind grows stronger, and they finally start rising, but just as Haru’s legs are half-way out of the water, it wraps around him and pulls him down.

“Haru-chan!”

He falls on his rear, his head sinking underwater. He opens his eyes to see the familiar blue of the sea swirling around him possessively.

_Ah, so that’s the problem._

His affinity with the water is interfering with Makoto’s attempts to lift them in the air. The water doesn’t seem to want to let him go, so Haru imagines a waterspout propelling them up instead.

He breaks the surface of the water quickly, and there’s only enough time for him to grab one of Makoto’s hands before the water column forming beneath him quickly rises to half the height of the cliffs to their right. 

Makoto, in his surprise, wraps his arms around Haru’s waist. He’s shivering, although from cold or fear, Haru isn’t sure.

“Are you all right?” He asks, worry creasing his brow.

“Um, yeah,” Makoto says unconvincingly. He gives Haru a sheepish grin. “Just a bit surprised.”

“I’m going to take us higher, then.”

Haru watches for any sign of Makoto not wanting him to do that, but the resolute set of his mouth shows none. In typical Makoto fashion, he must have decided to see this through to the end.

They rise as high as Haru’s water-pulling allows them, which is just a few feet shy of the lowest hanging clouds. 

“Makoto, your turn.”

“Huh?”

“This is as far as I can take us. I’m going to let the water down slowly, then you use the wind to keep us afloat,” Haru instructs. 

He’s not even sure if this crazy plan of his would work out, but at least, he’s confident that his water-pulling abilities are good enough to cushion their fall into the water if Makoto fails to keep them in the air. 

And from the way Makoto’s looking at him—with relief and gratitude—Haru knows that Makoto believes in him too. He knows that Haru won’t let either of them get hurt.

The waterspout thins, slowly just as Haru had said. The circle of water supporting them grows smaller until it’s just wide enough to hold their feet. 

“Ready?”

Makoto nods then closes his eyes. Haru feels the wind gathering around them again, and it’s a lot stronger than Makoto’s previous attempts.

With only a slight hint of hesitation that disappears quickly enough, Haru lets go of the water.

For one heart-stopping moment, they hang in mid-air, and Haru doesn’t feel anything holding his body up. He instinctively reaches for Makoto just as the younger boy opens his eyes.

  


          **It’s all right. We won’t fall.**

  


The thought reverberates in Haru’s mind, yet Haru isn’t sure whose it is. Is it his or Makoto’s? He does a quick scan of his mindspace and lets out a quiet gasp of surprise.

At the edge of his mind, at the point where his and Makoto’s mindspaces are linked, instead of the usual fuzziness, there’s a whirlpool spiralling ever upward. The foam and bubbles move restlessly but calmly at the same time, in a way that Haru can’t explain in words. 

He swims towards it, and when he reaches the placid waters at the very centre, he looks up.

Makoto is there, beaming at him as if he’s found the answer to every question in the universe. Wind wraps around him the same way the water cradles Haru, and he realises that this is the form of their bond—their soul link.

“Haru!”

Haru kicks upward just as Makoto dives further down, their hands stretching towards each other. The moment their fingertips touch, Haru jolts back to reality.

“I did it, Haru-chan!”

Elated, Makoto leads them haphazardly among the clouds. He looks light, all the burdens and disappointments of the past few weeks melting away as he savours the feeling of flying.

They alternate between dipping and climbing as Makoto works out the finer details of coasting on the wind. It feels a lot like swimming, Haru realises, only drier. 

Okay, so maybe not like swimming. But it incites the same sort of bliss in him, and not even the absence of water can dampen that happiness. 

He glances at Makoto, and realises why. 

_It’s because this person is here. Makoto is here._

“Makoto,” Haru calls. 

The way they’re flying, both spread-eagled with Haru’s right hand in contact with Makoto’s left, leaves Haru with a cold sense of not being close enough to the younger brunet. 

Surely it must be easier to propel them if they’re pressed close together?

Haru pulls himself closer to Makoto, and their bodies sink a few inches as Makoto adjusts to the movement. 

They flit around Iwatobi and its neighbouring harbour towns, always making sure to keep the sea directly below them. They reach as far inland as Makoto would dare take them, then circle around back to the coast.

All the while, Makoto hums a tune under his breath and it’s only when they’re almost back to where they’d started that Haru recognizes it as the song from the movie earlier.

“Cheesy,” Haru snickers lightly. 

Makoto pouts in response. “It’s a really nice song, though.”

“I guess.” Haru shrugs.

“Ah, I can see our house from here!” 

Makoto points excitedly to one of the many flickering lights in the distance.

At the mention of home, a thought occurs to Haru. They’d sort of snuck out via the window earlier, so it’s probably best to head home now that Makoto seems comfortable with flying. At the very least, they should return before Makoto’s parents realise they’re not in Makoto’s room.

Haru turns to Makoto to tell him they should land soon, but his eyes widen at the intensity of Makoto’s gaze as he drinks in every detail of the night sky, of the sea waves rolling gently underneath them. 

“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it, Haru-chan?” he whispers reverently. “I’m so glad I could see this with you.”

Before Haru can check himself, he leans closer to Makoto. The brunet turns his head to look at Haru, and the impulse to close the distance between them becomes too much to resist.

Haru presses his lips to Makoto’s, closing his eyes like he’d seen his parents do when they think he’s not looking. Haru knows what it means to kiss someone like this—his grandma had explained it to him pretty well—and he does it anyway because really, he can’t think of anyone he cares for more than Makoto. Sure, he loves his parents, and his grandma, and water, but Makoto is the only one who makes his insides feel all warm and tingly when he smiles.

Grandma had told him once that it’s called falling in love for a reason—because it’s not something you can control, and there’s that feeling of weightlessness when you’re with the person you love. Certainly, that funny feeling in his stomach right now feels a lot like falling, and that must mean that he loves Makoto, right?

  


“Aaaahh!”

  


Haru blinks in surprise. Makoto’s hands have his arms in a death-grip, and they’re what prompt Haru to look around for whatever is causing his soul mate distress.

“We’re falling,” Haru observes, a weird kind of calm coming over him. He feels just a little ticked off that he’d been thinking that he’d been falling in love, when he had actually just been literally falling.

His shirt flaps violently in the wake of their descent, the wind searing his cheeks with a cold burn. Yet even like this, he can’t take his eyes of Makoto, for reasons that not even he himself knows. 

“Haru-chan, do something!” 

Just a tiny bit annoyed at Makoto’s panicking, Haru glances down; in a few seconds, they’d be hitting the water, but that’s okay since that’s more than enough for him to will the water to catch them.

“Brace yourself,” Haru tells Makoto, pulling him even closer and wrapping his arms around the younger boy’s waist. 

Makoto nods, his cheeks puffing out as he sucks in a huge lungful of air. He’d tell Makoto that what he’s doing is unnecessary—as vampires, although they usually breathe because it helps humans feel more secure around them, they don’t need air the same way humans do—but it’s not that important in the long run so he says nothing.

Satisfied, Haru twists around so his body would hit the water first.

They plunge into the water with a loud splash, bubbles escaping from Makoto’s mouth before he calms down and remembers the feel of being underwater.

Through the water, he sees Makoto’s open eyes glittering with an emotion that Haru can’t quite grasp. It’s gratitude, yet it’s not. It’s relief, but not really. It might be happiness, but it’s a lot more intense than that.

_It’s love. I think._

________________________________________

“Haru.”

A hand gently shakes him, pulling him from the haziness of sleep. He opens one eye blearily, and the first thing he sees is Makoto’s face.

“Were you dreaming of something?” Makoto asks, his fingers brushing the hair out of Haru’s eyes.

Haru leans into his touch. “Yeah, just something from the past.”

“A good something?” 

“Aa.”

Makoto’s lips find his, and they share the kind of slow, lazy kiss that sends delicious shivers down Haru’s spine. He winds his arms around Makoto’s neck, pulling him close until there is hardly any space between their bodies.

A bright red fish swims past, its beady eyes accusing, as if telling them ‘Get a room, you two’. 

Haru pulls away with a sigh. As much as he likes spending time with Makoto in the air bubble he creates for them at the bottom of the sea, he’d much rather that they take their private time to Haru’s house where there is no one to see them.

Granted, fish can’t talk and neither can sea turtles or jellyfish, but it feels a bit weird making out with his soul mate while a whole school of fish is swimming just a few metres from them. 

“Makoto, let’s go home.”

“Okay.” The knowing glint in the green of Makoto’s eyes makes Haru pinch the brunet’s nose.

“Ow, Haru, what—?“

“Felt like it.” Haru hides his grin by turning his head aside.

“Really…” Makoto rubs the bridge of his nose. 

Their bubble rises slowly to the surface—a testament to how far Makoto has gone in regard to wind-waking. 

Their intertwined fingers remain warm even in the cool depths of the sea—proof of the strength of their bond.

Together, they break through the water and emerge into the scent of the ocean breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> Since this takes place before they awaken as vampires, I figured I'd spend more time on the air-born, water-born aspect of the AU. I'm thinking of writing one exploring their awakening though, so there might be another oneshot for this series if I get around to it.


End file.
